


Blur

by tirsynni



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Gen, Post Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing he remembered was dying, so waking up in Starfleet Medical was confusing as hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blur

The last thing he remembered was dying.

It had hurt. It had stripped him of control. He remembered the pain and helplessness but when he woke up from his not-death, the main thing he remembered was the fear. His body had failed him and Spock had watched on, so close but unable to soothe that damned human, mortal fear.

He had been dying, so waking up to the bright white light of Starfleet sickbay was confusing as hell.

Everything, both life and death, blurred after that. Friends swarmed and there were tears, so many tears – he was alive, not dead, why were they crying? – and admirals attempting to be gentle in their debriefings but who held themselves too tightly, familiar fear darkening their eyes. Starfleet personnel visited to assure themselves that he wasn’t dead when he still wasn’t too sure of it himself and there were debriefings after debriefings after debriefings when he couldn’t even be sure what day it was. They told him he had been unconscious for weeks but it felt like both a moment and a lifetime. One ensign slipped and let him know what was happening outside Starfleet medical, the sheer destruction wrought on San Francisco. Everything blurred even more after that.

All the faces blurred, time drifted, so it took him a bit to realize who hadn’t visited. Spock was there when he was awake but didn’t visit again. No one would answer his questions as to where he had gone. McCoy hovered protectively, almost possessively, on edge at the slightest change in his vitals. There was a strange sheen in his eyes whenever McCoy looked at him. When he tried to clarify what that strange difference was, the drugs swept him under again. It took days to force the question out:

“Where’s Jim?”

When McCoy began to quietly weep, Chris Pike’s world blurred again.

It took days before Lieutenant Uhura would tell him the story, about how Jim had given Spock captaincy, how he had eventually sacrificed himself, and the attempts to save Jim's life. She whispered how Jim had died thinking Pike had died, how no one had even thought he would survive and only McCoy’s savage efforts had saved him. She talked about John Harrison and Admiral Marcus but he let those words blur, one moment in time sharp and clear like nothing had been for weeks:

How he told Jim he wasn’t ready to be captain.

When they gave him Captain James T. Kirk’s flag and informed him that Jim had died a hero, Pike let everything blur away.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the concept of what would have happened if Pike had survived and McCoy had been unable to revive Kirk.


End file.
